Marc Engels is currently the Chief Operational Officer (COO) of Flanders Make, the strategic research center for the Flemish manufacturing industry. The research of the center focuses on the machines, vehicles and factories of the future. Before, Marc Engels was the General Manager of the Flanders mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC). Previously, he was the CTO of LoraNet, a start-up in the field of broadband wireless communication. And the director of the wireless department at IMEC, focused on the implementation of telecommunication systems on chip. Marc Engels received the engineering degree (1988) and the Ph.D. (1993), both from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.